South african americans

by Judson Knight and Lorna Mabunda

Overview

South Africa is a nation of 471,445 square miles (1,221,043 square
kilometers), slightly smaller than the combined areas of Texas, New
Mexico, and Arizona. As its name implies, it is located at the southern
tip of Africa, with Namibia to the northwest; Botswana to the north; and
Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Swaziland to the northeast. The nation of
Lesotho is entirely contained within South Africa, one of the few places
on earth where such a phenomenon occurs. As for the western, southern, and
eastern boundaries of South Africa, these are formed by oceans. The
Atlantic lies to the west, and the Indian Ocean to the south and east. A
line along the twentieth parallel east, near Cape Agulhas, forms the
boundary between the two oceans.

The population of South Africa, almost 43 million people in 1998, is
extremely diverse ethnically, and indeed ethnic divisions form a central
theme of South African history and culture. Racially the nation is 75
percent black; 14 percent white; 9 percent "Colored," a term
designating persons of mixed racial heritage; and 2 percent Asian.
Ethnically these groups are further divided, with the largest black
minorities comprised of 5.6 million Xhosa, 5.3 million Zulu, and 4.2
million Sotho. Of the nation's 6 million whites, about 3.6 million
are of Afrikaner heritage, and 2.4 million are English. The 3.6 million
Coloreds come from a variety of
origins, their ethnic makeup a mixture of white, black, and Asian
ancestry. Finally, there is the Asian population, of which
Indians—one of the largest communities outside of India
itself—make up the majority.

Sixty-eight percent of South Africa's population is Christian, and
another 29 percent is made up of persons, mostly black, who adhere to
traditional religions. The other 3 percent consists of Jews, as well as
the predominantly Hindu Indian population. As a further mark of its ethnic
diversity, South Africa has 11 official languages, including Afrikaans,
English, Ndebele, and Sotho. With such a mixture of peoples, it is perhaps
fitting that South Africa has three capitals, one for each branch of
government: Cape Town (legislative), Pretoria (executive), and
Bloemfontein (judicial). The national flag, adopted in 1994 to replace the
orange, white, and blue stripes of the old South African standard, is also
fitting in its multicolored character. A green stripe shaped like a
capital letter
Y,
with the ends opening to the left, dominates the flag. It is bordered in
white on one side, with a red trapezoid in the upper right and a blue one
in the lower right. To the left is a black triangle bordered in gold.

HISTORY

The earliest known inhabitants of South Africa were Pygmies and Khoisan.
The latter, speakers of the so-called "click language,"
included the Hottentot or Khoi people, and the San or Bushmen. The
Khoisan, hunter-gatherers with a rich oral tradition who produced some of
Africa's most striking rock art, arrived in the area many thousands
of years ago, but were ultimately displaced by the Bantu peoples. The
Bantu, a large language group whose common characteristic is their word
for "people,"
bantu,
originated in and around what is now Nigeria in about 1200
B.C.
Though they did not develop a written language, they were an Iron Age
civilization whose higher level of technological advancement gave them
dominance over the native peoples of southern Africa. Ultimately they
seized the best land, forcing the Pygmies into the less desirable rain
forest while the Khoisan retreated to the Kalahari Desert. By the
fourteenth century
A.D.
, most of southern Africa belonged to the Bantu.

The first Europeans arrived a century later, when the Portuguese reached
the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. Explorer Bartholomeu Dias (c. 1450-1500)
actually called it the Cape of Storms, and only later did it receive its
more optimistic-sounding name. Permanent white settlement began in 1652,
with the establishment of a Dutch supply station at the Cape. Subsequent
decades saw an influx of slaves from the West Indies; French Protestant
refugees known as Huguenots; and German dairy farmers and missionaries.

In 1806, the British seized the Cape of Good Hope, which they named the
Cape Colony. The Boers or Afrikaners, as the descendants of the Dutch
called themselves, ceded the Cape to Great Britain in an 1814 treaty. By
1836, the Boers of the Cape had become so dissatisfied with British rule
that some 16,000 undertook a mass migration inland which came to be known
as "The Great Trek." Their seizure of Bantu lands led to
conflict with the Zulu tribe, who under the leadership of the legendary
chieftain Shaka (c. 1787-1828) conquered most of what is now Natal
Province. King Shaka was assassinated by his half-brothers in 1828,
however, and the Boers defeated his successors at the Battle of Blood
River in 1838.

The Natal became the site of sugar cane plantations, which saw the arrival
of large numbers of indentured Indian laborers beginning in about 1860.
The Boers discovered precious resources in their area—diamonds in
1867, and gold in 1882—and thereafter South Africa would be famous
for its vast natural wealth. However, it would also be famous for
conflict, with the next stage of political tension in the region centering
around British ambitions to conquer the entire land. The Boers had founded
two republics, the Transvaal or South African Republic in 1852 and the
Orange Free State two years later. Britain annexed the Transvaal in 1877,
and in 1880 the two sides went to war. Results of the First Anglo-Boer War
(1880-81) were inconclusive, and this led to the Second Anglo-Boer War
(1899-1902). The latter, sometimes simply known as the Boer War, was not
merely the first important military conflict of the twentieth century. It
established British imperial power in the region as an unshakable reality,
and also saw the first use of modern concentration camps. In 1910 the
former Boer states merged with Cape Province and Natal to form the Union
of South Africa.

MODERN ERA

As a part of the British Empire, South Africa took part in World War I,
its principal action being the seizure of German Southwest Africa. In
1919, following the end of the war, South Africa received a mandate to the
former German colony, the present-day nation of Namibia. It fought against
Nazi Germany in World War II as well, but around the same time, a new
political ideology arose among South
African whites which called for separation of the races—for which
the Afrikaans word is
apartheid.

Apartheid had its roots in the long Boer tradition of ethnic separation,
inculcated during the hard years of the Great Trek and thereafter, but it
had other antecedents as well. It could not have existed without the
Afrikaner labor movement, a group which at one point adopted a slogan
which symbolizes the mixture of socialist and racist ideas which went into
Apartheid: "Workers of the world unite and fight for a white South
Africa!" Eager to maintain their job status against encroachment by
the black majority, who would work for lower wages, white labor unions
supported the new policy, and the British tradition of self-rule for
nations within the Empire allowed it to take hold. The establishment of
apartheid became official with the victory of the Nationalist Party in
1948, but the ideology of Apartheid had been forming for many years, with
the ideas of Hendrik Verwoerd (1901-66) forming an intellectual basis.

Among the areas of principal concern in both the theory and practice of
apartheid were labor; the vote, whereby a virtually all-white franchise
was established; land and municipal segregation, with minorities
segregated into areas variously called homelands or Bantustans; and
separate educational facilities. These steps were followed by so-called
"petty apartheid," which established a set of practices even
more severe than those that prevailed in the American South prior to the
Civil Rights movement of 1960s. Public transportation, restrooms, and even
beaches and park benches were segregated. In 1950, the
Nationalist-dominated parliament of South Africa passed the Group Areas
Act, establishing residential and business sections in urban areas for
each of the four recognized races: Whites, Blacks, Coloreds, and Asians.
Existing "pass laws" that required blacks to carry documents
authorizing their presence in restricted areas were strengthened as well.

Growing Afrikaner resistance to British rule led to a decision, through a
1960 referendum among whites, to give up status as a British dominion. A
new republic was born on May 31, 1961, and South Africa withdrew from the
British Commonwealth. The 1960s and 1970s saw an increase in laws relating
to apartheid, along with growing unrest among the black
population—and increasing worldwide disapproval of South Africa.
Laws forbade most social contacts between races; restricted races to
certain jobs; curtailed black labor unions; and abolished
non-white—including Asian and Colored—participation in the
national government. Political rights of the black majority were confined
to participation in tightly controlled urban councils in the townships, or
in the ten ethnically distinct, government-created homelands. Though each
of these ten homelands retained varying degrees of autonomy,
Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, Transkei, and Venda were granted independence,
though South Africa was the only nation on earth to recognize them as
independent nations.

The first major anti-apartheid riots broke out at Sharpeville, where
government troops killed 69 black protesters. A series of riots in 1976
led to the deaths of some 600 blacks, and the murder of resistance leader
Stephen Biko (1946-1977) in 1977 led to increased tension. Around this
time, world concern over apartheid resulted in a number of actions. South
Africa was banned from many international cultural exchange programs, and
after 1960, its athletes were not allowed in the Olympic Games and other
international competitions. The United Nations imposed an arms embargo,
and passed resolutions condemning apartheid. A widespread popular reaction
in the West, simmering for several decades, exploded in the 1980s, with
anti-apartheid protests on many college campuses. A number of artistic
works, ranging from British novelist Graham Greene's 1977 novel
The Human Factor
to an array of songs by recording artists, registered the disapproval
with which most Europeans and Americans regarded apartheid. Under pressure
from stockholders, many foreign banks and multinationals broke their South
African ties, and many in the United States called for full economic
divestiture from South Africa. Meanwhile, South Africa was embroiled in
wars with the Communist governments of nearby Angola and Mozambique during
much of the 1980s, and also fought a sustained conflict with the Southwest
African People's Organization (SWAPO) in Southwest Africa, which it
had retained as a colony against international protests.

Significant changes to apartheid first came in 1983, when a new
constitution extended the vote to Asians and Coloreds. Two years later,
the government repealed laws banning interracial sex and marriage.
Progress was the result not only of organized groups, both of leading
figures both black and white. One notable figure was Archbishop Desmond
Tutu (1931– ), who in 1986 won the Nobel Peace Prize and called on
all Western nations to apply economic sanctions against South Africa as a
means of forcing an end to apartheid. Even more prominent was Nelson
Mandela (1918– ), leader of the African National Congress (ANC).
Jailed since the early 1960s, Mandela was an important symbol of the
anti-apartheid movement, as the ANC was the principal political
organization. Whites prominent in the anti-apartheid movement included
Helen Suzman (1918– ), an outspoken member of parliament, and
Communist leader Joe Slovo (1926-1995).

As the nation tottered toward civil war, President P. W. Botha
(1916– ) in 1986 ordered an end to pass laws and allowed blacks to
take an advisory role in government. But he also launched attacks against
ANC strongholds in neighboring countries, and a massive strike by some 2
million black workers in 1988 helped lead to his resignation in 1989.
Under the administration of F. W. de Klerk (1936– ), the government
removed its ban on the ANC and released Mandela in 1990. In 1991, de Klerk
announced plans to end apartheid, and in 1994 the nation held free
elections in which the ANC won the majority, making Nelson Mandela the
first president of the "new" South Africa. The end of
apartheid has not brought an end to tension in the country, however.
Fighting between the ANC and the Zulu Inkatha Party has killed thousands,
and many whites have fled the country. Racial tensions between blacks and
other groups has continued as well.

SIGNIFICANT IMMIGRATION WAVES

It is difficult to discern patterns of South African immigration to the
United States prior to the mid-twentieth century. This is true for a
number of reasons, and—in a pattern typical of all matters South
African—these reasons differ according to ethnic group. Before the
end of apartheid in the early 1990s, immigration by white South Africans,
either of Afrikaner or British heritage, was in very small numbers. Most
were immigrants of conscience who fled their nation's repressive
system, in many cases under orders from the government or at least threats
from the police. White immigrants were typically of English heritage,
since it was in the very nature of Afrikaner identity to stay put: this
indeed was integral to the mentality which spawned apartheid. Then, of
course, there were the black immigrants, who also were fleeing apartheid,
though not simply as a matter of conscience but rather for survival.
Immigration by blacks was limited as well, but again for different
reasons: though the standard of living for blacks in South Africa was
higher than for most people living on the African continent, economic
conditions still made immigration difficult.

The end of apartheid, of course, brought significant waves of white
emigration, but the white exodus from South Africa in the 1990s was not as
severe as many had predicted. Mandela, who stepped down from the
presidency in 1999, sought to retain as many whites as possible, and urged
multiracial policies in an attempt to counteract a potential black
backlash against former oppressors. Nonetheless, racism has remained a
powerful force in South Africa, a factor which could motivate migrations
in the future. This racism is not simply white against black, though that
has continued, albeit in reaction to government policy rather than as a
part of that policy. Yet as the
Africa News Service
reported in 1999, much of the racism is black on black. South Africa has
always been a net "importer" of people, with much higher
immigration than emigration, but according to the
News Service
report, black hostility towards other Africans increased in the 1990s:
"South Africans even have derogatory ways of referring to black
foreigners:
makwerere
—the local name given to insects that survive on cow and human
feces; or
girigamba:
people from nowhere."

SETTLEMENT PATTERNS

Of the whites who left South Africa in the years leading up to and
following the end of apartheid, most did not go to the United States. They
were far more likely to settle in Australia or New Zealand, countries
which share South Africa's British heritage. Furthermore, the
climate in Oceania is similar to that in South Africa, and the location of
these countries far south of the Equator means that the seasonal
changes—summer at the beginning of the calendar year, and winter in
the middle of the year—are similar to those in South Africa. In
1989, M. J. Polonsky and others presented "A Profile of Emigrants
from South Africa: The Australian Case" in
International Migration Review.
Polonsky et al. found that South African immigrants in Australia shared
several characteristics: high levels of technical skill; significant
professional qualifications; families with young children; and little or
no financial assets remaining in South Africa—thus indicating a
decision to leave the country for good. White South Africans also settled
in Britain and Canada. Thus a 1998 article in the Canadian magazine
Maclean's
reported that "South African doctors are still flocking to Canada,
seeking a foreign haven from rising crime, a falling currency, and
wrenching changes to the health-care system."

As for those whites who have moved to the United States, both before and
after the end of apartheid, a relatively large number have settled in
Midwestern states such as Minnesota and Illinois. Thus some stores in
Chicago, for instance, sell Marie biscuits, cookies often served by South
Africans with tea. There are also pockets of South African immigrants on
the East Coast, in areas such as Atlanta, which has a large population of
South
African Jews. A number of South Africans have also settled in
Mid-Atlantic states such as Maryland, and in New York.

Throughout the western United States, for instance in Arizona, California,
and in the Pacific Northwest, there are small South African populations,
though it would be hard to discern a pattern to such settlements. Unlike,
say, the Irish, South Africans in general—both white and
black—have tended to come to America individually rather than in
large groups. Thus they can be found throughout the country.

Acculturation and Assimilation

Whether in the 1990s or before, immigrants from South Africa seemed to
bear an invisible
A
as a mark that set them apart—an
A
that stood for apartheid. This was true not only of white but of black
immigrants, and issues from South African life have tended to carry over
to life in the United States. Thus in 1989 Mark Mathabane (1960– ),
a black writer and immigrant who settled in North Carolina, wrote in the
autobiographical
Kaffir Boy in America
: "I marveled at the reach of apartheid: it could influence the way
people thousands of miles away thought, felt, and acted; it could silence
them at will; it could defeat them without a shot being fired."
Sheila Roberts, a white writer who moved to Michigan in part because she
opposed apartheid, wrote that "From the beginning I was seen by
American friends and colleagues as not only an authority on South Africa
but also a representative of the 'opposition. "' It
is ironic, given their complex and multifarious heritage, that South
Africans of all groups have been thus stereotyped and reduced to a mere
political identity. The same ethnic diversity that has often made South
Africa a focal point of tension has also produced a richly varied culture.

TRADITIONS, CUSTOMS, AND BELIEFS

It is important to note that Afrikaners consider themselves Africans, not
Europeans. Interestingly, Afrikaners and South African blacks share much
of the same folklore, and indeed, in a further detail which illustrates
the racial complexity of South Africa, many of those shared traditions can
be traced to Asian roots. There are, for instance,
goel
or ghost stories originated by indentured laborers from India and
Malaysia, tales adopted by whites and blacks alike. Many of these stories
revolve around the harsh southeastern wind, known as the "Cape
Doctor," that blows over Cape Town in the summertime. In contrast
to Afrikaners, English South Africans have a cultural heritage more tied
to that of Great Britain—a heritage shared by British, Australians,
New Zealanders, and Canadians—rather than to that of southern
Africa.

Of course the Zulu, Xhosa, and Sotho peoples each have multifaceted
cultural traditions all their own. According to Zulu myth, at one time
people did not die, but simply continued living, and thus in Zulu culture,
old age is seen as a blessing. A Zulu legend recounts how the Creator told
a chameleon to go and tell the people of the world that they did not have
to die; but the chameleon took so long to do the job that finally the
angered Creator sent a lizard in his place to tell them that indeed they
would die. The lizard got his work done faster, and it is only for this
reason that death exists.

Like the Zulu and indeed like most groups of people throughout the world,
the Xhosa have their own tales of human origins, which in their case
revolves around a heroic Adam figure known simply as Xhosa. There is a
large body of Xhosa folktales, called
intsomi,
as well as praise poems or
isibongo
regarding the adventures of past heroes. The Xhosa have several
interesting dietary restrictions: women are typically not supposed to eat
eggs, and a man is not supposed to drink milk in a village where he might
later take a wife.

The Sotho, known as excellent horsemen, are distinguished by their bright
blankets and cone-shaped hats. An example of the latter appears on the
flag of Lesotho, whose population is primarily Sotho. The Sotho tradition
also includes praise poems and folk tales, one of the most prominent of
which is a tale concerning a boy named Santkatana, who saves the world by
killing a giant monster.

PROVERBS

The cultures of South Africa are more rich in colorful terminology than
they are in proverbs. The nation's various black ethnic groups have
a wide array of piquant expressions, but so too does the white population,
and there is much crossover between cultures in this regard. Many
ethnicities, for instance, recognize
tom
as a word for money.
Bundu,
a variant of
boondocks,
is the South African term for what Australians would call the
"Outback"; and whereas Americans go
"four-wheeling," South Africans go
bundu-bashing
in a four-wheel drive vehicle. South Africans share a number of
expressions with colloquial British English, including
ta
as a slang term for "thanks." Salty insults include
brak,
meaning a dog or mongrel.
Gatvol
is an off-color
term meaning "fed up," as in "I'm
gatvol
with this traffic," and an expression for dismissing a
request—something like "forget it," only
stronger—is "Your
mal auntie.
"

CUISINE

As in many other aspects of South African life, the national cuisines are
as varied as the ethnic groups. Afrikaners favor a meat-and-potatoes diet
that includes items such as
boerewors,
a sausage made of pork;
putu pap,
a type of porridge; and
brai
or barbecue. English South Africans, as one might expect, eat a diet
similar to that of the British, though with local variations such as
bredies,
or stew. Vegetable dishes are often mixtures, such as spinach and
potatoes, or roasted, sweetened pumpkin. The Zulu diet places a heavy
emphasis on products of the cow, including beef and milk products such as
amasi,
or curdled milk. Mealie-meal, or cooked corn meal, and yams are also
favorites. Among the Xhosa, goat, mutton, and beef are popular, as are
corn and bread. Particularly notable is a spicy hominy dish called
umngqusho.
Coloreds eat
bredies,
and enjoy an Indian-style meat pastry called
samoesas.

South African culture, obviously, is full of many and varied terms for
items of food. There are, for instance, Marie biscuits, a hard, dry cookie
made for dipping in tea. Cream crackers, light and puffy sweets, are also
popular. Other favorite dishes include
morogo
or
imifino,
a wild leaf stew;
bobotie,
a minced beef curry;
bitlong,
which is dried meat similar to jerky; a fried bread called
vetkoek
; and
sosaties,
which are made of marinated lamb and apricots. Meals may be washed down
with homemade beer, fine wines, coffee, or
mechow,
a drink made from corn meal. A strong English tea called Red Bush tea is
very popular, as are Chinese and Indian teas. These are often sweetened
with condensed milk.

MUSIC

The range of peoples, cultures, and traditions in South Africa is
reflected in the diversity of the nation's music, and traditional
music, though confined to more rural areas, continues to influence
contemporary urban forms. Traditional instruments include homemade horns,
drums, and stringed instruments, and among neo-traditional styles are
variants on the indigenous music of the Ndebele, Pedi, Shangaan, Sotho,
and Zulu. For example, the Tsonga are associated with the
mbila,
a traditional instrument played along with drums and horns; often Tsongan
music is used to accompany the tribe's traditional dance forms.
From the countryside have come such forms as
mbube,
a complex choral gospel music.

In the 1930s,
marabi
became very popular. Like its cousin, American big band jazz,
marabi
is a characterized by the repetition of short melodic phrases.
Kwela
gained popularity in the 1940s, with its distinctive blend of homemade
guitar, saxophone, and pennywhistle. By the 1960s, whites too had become
avid fans of township jazz, which had sprouted into
kwela'
s instrumental music and
mbaqanga,
a vocal jazz style. The Cape Malays developed their own Cape jazz, marked
by strains of Eastern sounds from their Indonesian heritage. The social
upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s, however, prompted many artists to leave
the country. Self-imposed exile brought international fame to some,
including Miriam Makeba (1932– ), Hugh Masekela (1939– ),
and Abdullah Ibrahim (1934– ).

In the 1980s, the townships gave birth to their own brand of pop music.
Just as the heavily synthetic sounds of new wave splashed through the
Western world, "township music" was punctuated by
synthesizers and drum machines, though it maintained the vocal harmonies
for which South Africans are famed. South African music also got a boost
on the world scene when American pop singer Paul Simon teamed up with
a cappella
group Ladysmith Black Mambazo for his highly acclaimed album
Graceland
in 1986. In the 1990s, vocal artistry developed into the praise poetry of
rap and hip-hop, which borrows from American styles to create uniquely
South African forms. Another style that developed in the 1990s was
kwaito,
which blends traditional sounds with those of house music, rhythm and
blues, and hip-hop.

TRADITIONAL COSTUMES

Though black South Africans in urban areas tend to dress in a fashion
indistinguishable from that of whites, their traditional costumes are much
more colorful and varied. Zulu men, for instance, sport the
amabheshu,
a type of apron of goatskin or leather worn at the back. Beads are common
among men, women, and children, and popular items for men are frilly
goatskin bands worn on both arms and legs.

The Xhosa, too, are known for the striking attire, including blankets with
detailed patterns, which both men and women wear as shawls. The Sotho also
have their brightly colored blankets, worn as coats, but these are
typically store-bought since they have no tradition of hand-making these
items. In areas north of Johannesburg, a great influence
of the Ndebele is evident. The Ndebele are famous for their beadwork and
the geometric designs that they paint on their houses. Indians and other
Asians, of course, have their own styles of dress associated with their
cultures. For the most part, however, South Africans wear Western-style
clothing, and following the example of President Mandela, attire tends to
be comfortable and casual, even for business meetings.

DANCES AND SONGS

Singing and dancing is a significant part of black South African
traditional life, and praise poems form an important element in their
songs. The Xhosa practice group singing and hand-clapping, but have also
borrowed from Western styles introduced by missionaries. An example of the
missionaries' influence, which centered around Christian hymns, is
the hymn-like "Nkosi Sikele' iAfrika" or "God
Bless Africa," written by a Xhosa schoolteacher in 1897. It later
became South Africa's national anthem.

A popular song among Afrikaners is "Daar Kom Die Alabama,"
or "There Comes the
Alabama.
" The song celebrates the C.S.S.
Alabama,
a Confederate raider which pursued the U.S.S.
Sea Bride
all the way to Cape Town in August 1863. All of Cape Town, is it said,
came out to greet the ship from far-off America.

HOLIDAYS

South Africans celebrate a number of secular and religious holidays. These
include the following, some of which are national public holidays: Family
Day, April 5; Freedom Day, April 27, commemorating the first day on which
black South Africans were allowed to vote; Worker's Day, May 1;
Youth Day, June 16, in honor of protestors killed during riots in the
Soweto township in 1976; National Women's Day, August 9; Heritage
Day, September 24; Reconciliation Day, December 16; and Boxing Day or the
Day of Goodwill on December 26.

English and/or Afrikaners celebrate Founder's Day on April 6, the
anniversary of the founding of the Cape Colony in 1652; Republic Day, on
May 31, anniversary of the declaration of the Republic of South Africa in
1961; Kruger Day on October 10, the birthday of early Afrikaner leader S.
J. P. Kruger (1825-1904); and the Day of the Vow on December 16, which
commemorates the Boer defeat of the Zulu in 1838.

Religious holidays include Good Friday, along with the non-religious
Easter Monday holiday; Ascension Day in April or May; and Christmas. New
Year's Day, of course, is also a holiday.

Language

South Africa has 11 official languages: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele,
Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Swati, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, and
Zulu. Though none of the major languages is spoken by a majority of the
populace, 98 percent of South Africans use at least one of them as their
home or first language. Most blacks, in fact, are multilingual, speaking
their tribal languages along with English and possibly Afrikaans, which at
one time was a school requirement.

Accommodating such a plethora of languages has been a challenge, and
indeed the June 16, 1976, riots at Soweto began as a protest by black
students against the use of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in
black schools. At the time, Afrikaans was predominantly the language used
to conduct matters of politics and internal administration, while English
was used to communicate with the outside world in matters of business and
science.

In the new South Africa, television broadcasts can be heard in the most
prevalent languages: English, Sotho, Xhosa, Zulu, and Afrikaans. Radio
broadcasts are even more varied. English, however, remains the principal
language used by most people, with the other languages primarily confined
to regions where native speakers predominate.

Family and Community Dynamics

The subjects of family and community, as applied to South Africans in
general—and particularly to South Africans in America—are
closely tied to the complex political and racial history of South Africa
itself. For South Africans in America, the legacy of apartheid has
continued to be haunting, though of course not to the degree that it was
prior to the early 1990s. In part because of their troubled national past,
many South Africans living in America still feel a sense of connectedness
to the old country in a way that many other immigrant groups may not. This
affects family and community relations, tending to strengthen the bonds of
Afrikaner to Afrikaner and black South African to black South African.

For English South Africans, on the other hand, this dynamic has not been
so strong, simply because their accents make many of them
indistinguishable, as far as most Americans were concerned, from
British or Australians. Yet this, too, has created tensions within
families. Thus Sheila Roberts wrote of her son, "By the time he was
twelve and able to understand the full infamy of South African racism, he
grew so ashamed of his South African heritage that he not only began
inventing a different past for himself, but he expected me not to tell
people I was from South Africa. Rather, I should say I was from Britain:
my accent would carry the lie. At times I went along with his request if
he was with me, particularly if there was not much opportunity for a
following conversation in which I would have to fabricate an intricate and
unlikely past. Other times I would resist. I didn't like the
lie."

BIRTH AND BIRTHDAYS

In Zulu traditional culture, a birth is celebrated by the sacrifice of
animals to ancestors. Also important is a young girl's puberty
ceremony, signifying the fact that she has come of age and is eligible for
marriage. The Xhosa have much more intricate coming-of-age ceremonies for
both sexes. Boys are segregated from the rest of the group for several
weeks, during which time their heads are shaved and they undergo a number
of rituals such as the smearing of white clay over their entire bodies.
This rite of passage culminates with circumcision. As for girls, they are
also separated from the group, though for a shorter period, and during
this time the community celebrates with dances and animal sacrifices. The
Sotho have similarly complex rituals surrounding puberty and
circumcisions, which are performed on girls as well as boys.

English and Colored South Africans celebrate birthdays in a manner
familiar to most Americans brought up in Anglo-Saxon traditions. The same
is true of Afrikaners, though birthday parties are perhaps a bigger part
of life than they are with other groups. This is the case in particular
with regard to one's twenty-first birthday celebration, at which
the young person is presented with a key to symbolize their passage into
maturity.

THE ROLE OF WOMEN

Afrikaners are known for their highly conservative views, not only
regarding racial relations, but also with regard to women's roles.
This in part comes from a strong fundamentalist religious tradition, which
arose from a strict interpretation of family guidelines provided by the
Apostle Paul in the New Testament. In the 1990s, however, employment
opportunities for Afrikaner women increased, a change accompanied by a
decline in the practice of gender separation which typified many social
interactions among Afrikaners.

Gender relations in black South African ethnic groups have also been
characterized by patriarchy. The Xhosa, for instance, have a tradition of
polygamy, and the man is king in the typical Xhosa home, a fact also true
among the Zulu. The latter have their own polygamous tradition, one that
today even extends to dating: thus it is not uncommon for a young Zulu man
to have several girl-friends. As for English, Colored, and Asian families,
these all tend to be more or less traditional and patriarchal, depending
on the family and the degree to which they embrace cosmopolitan or Western
lifestyles.

BAPTISMS

Baptisms, of course, are not a factor in the tribal life of black South
Africans: though a large number of the latter tend to be Christians, the
religion is of course an import, and thus plays little role in the
traditional culture. The same is true of Asians. Almost all newborn
Afrikaners are baptized, and infant baptism plays a significant role in
the lives of English and other South African groups—including
blacks—who embrace either the Anglican or the Catholic faiths.

COURTSHIP

In the past, gender relations among Afrikaners were conducted according to
highly conservative guidelines. Thus males and females spent much of their
time apart, and when a young man of appropriate age took an interest in a
girl, courtship was formal and traditional. Should the young man wish to
marry, it was incumbent on him to ask the girl's father for her
hand in marriage. On three Sunday mornings prior to the wedding, the
couple's name would be read in church, and if there were no
objections, the marriage would be performed. This practice had declined by
the 1990s, however, and courtship was conducted more along lines familiar
to American and European youth.

Courtship among Coloreds has tended to be highly formal as well, in part
because apartheid-era laws banning interracial dating required people of
both sexes to be highly circumspect. Arranged marriages have played a
significant in lives of South African groups ranging from Asian Indians to
Sotho. The Zulu, on the other hand, have their own traditional courtship
practices which deviate somewhat from the patriarchal standard typical of
most tribal societies. Thus a Zulu girl is the one who initiates
contact by sending a "love letter"—actually, a
string of beads whose colors each carry specific meanings—to the
young man who interests her. The Xhosa have perhaps the most relaxed
practices, with boys and girls typically meeting at dances, some of which
last all night.

Religion

Religions among persons of South African origin fall into three broad
categories: Judeo-Christian, traditional and tribal faiths, and Asian
religions. The latter is by far the smallest group, in South Africa at
least if not among immigrants, with the majority being made up of Indian
Hindus. A small portion of South Africans are Muslims, Buddhists, or
Jains.

Among Afrikaners, the Reformed Church of Holland, a Protestant
denomination that arose during the 1600s, is a significant factor.
Reformed Church beliefs, however, have been mixed with Calvinism to make
up the Afrikaner's unique brand of Protestantism. Apartheid was
justified in part by virtue of the fact that John Calvin (1509-64) himself
supported separation of the races, as well as a strong role for the church
in government.

English, Coloreds, and black South African Christians typically belong to
either the Anglican or the Catholic churches. The prominent role of Bishop
Tutu, an Anglican minister, illustrates the more interracial character of
these churches in contrast to the Afrikaner version of the Reformed
Church. The 1980s and 1990s saw the rise of charismatic movements, which
place an emphasis on healing and other powers of the Holy Spirit,
primarily among black South Africans. Finally, there is a significant
community of Jewish South Africans, many of whom have immigrated to the
United States.

Although large numbers of Xhosa, Zulu, and members of other black ethnic
groups have accepted Christianity, traditional beliefs have not died out,
and in many cases are mingled with Christian practices. Adherents to the
Xhosa traditional religion worship a supreme being called uThixo or
uQamata, and the Zulus a deity named uNkulunkulu ("The Very Big
One.") In both cases, the supreme being has little role in the
personal lives of believers, but rather acts primarily as creator. The
Sothos' worship of Modimo is mingled with ancestor worship, and
indeed ancestors play a significant part in most traditional black African
faiths.

Employment and Economic Traditions

A number of South African entrepreneurs have established successful
businesses throughout the United States. Atlanta is a case in point.
Goldberg's Deli on Roswell Road is practically across the street
from Avril's Exclusives, a car detailing shop. Both are owned and
operated by Jewish immigrants from South Africa, as are numerous other
businesses within a small radius in the prosperous northern sector of the
city.

Atlanta is also the home of Firearms Training Systems, Inc, or FATS, a
facility for training law enforcement, military, and security personnel in
the use of firearms through simulations of real-world situations. Its
founder was South African race-car driver Jody Scheckter, who in 1979 won
the Formula One championship for Ferrari. "There was a lot more
tinkering than profiting in the early days," Scheckter told the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Geoff Lonsdale, Scheckter's head of European operations, gave
Corporate Location
quite a different appraisal of Scheckter's entrepreneurial
abilities: "He runs this company like he drives cars—flat
out." Perhaps because of his Afrikaner origins, it was natural for
Scheckter to develop contacts in the Netherlands, whose Ministry of
Defence is a significant FATS client. By 1996, when Scheckter sold FATS to
a New York-based investment firm, its annual revenues had reached $65
million.

Seattle entrepreneur Paul Suzman is another South African success story.
One of the first things that impressed him when he initially visited the
United States in 1971, Suzman told
Nation's Business,
was the fact that commerce in America operated 24 hours a day.
"That was something that stuck in my mind," he said,
"this incredible 24-hour energy." A mushroom farmer in South
Africa, he established a farm in the Pacific Northwest, and went on to
open a highly successful bakery that a
Nation's Business
headline characterized as "Paul Suzman's $2 Million
Hobby."

Politics and Government

In his 1989 memoir
Kaffir Boy in America,
Mark Mathabane recalled staying at "the I-House," a
dormitory for international students in New York City. There he
experienced tension with fellow black South Africans and others of African
origin, he wrote, when he "made it known that I would not isolate
myself from other students out of some false sense of black pride or
solidarity." He also met two white South Africans active in the
United Democratic
Front (UDF), an anti-apartheid group supported by Mandela, Tutu, and
others. From them, Mathabane learned "about the shock of finding
themselves reviled by Americans as racist simply because they were white
South Africans . . . . But what was even more shocking to [them] was being
shunned by most black South Africans at I-House." He listened to
them expressing their frustrations, then told them, "I consider you
brothers, too. But remember that to people in whom apartheid has bred
paranoia, your very connection with the UDF is reason to be wary of you
since all the opposition groups in South Africa, particularly the UDF, are
full of government informants."

Sheila Roberts also encountered the hostility that often greets white
South Africans in America, a fact illustrated by an incident that occurred
when she was buying tickets to a movie with her son in Lansing, Michigan,
in 1986. The theatre clerk noticed her accent and asked where she was
from, and "As soon as I said, `South Africa,' my son walked
away, ashamed as always at any reference to our country. The young woman
looked at me with cold curiosity. As she handed me the tickets, she
announced that `we' should nuke `that place.' Then she used
a catch-phrase from the Vietnam War, though she was too young to know
where it came from. She said we should turn it into a parking lot."

Both Mathabane and Roberts were perplexed by the ignorance of Americans
with regard to the situation in South Africa. In Roberts's case,
this revolved around her treatment as a representative of all white South
Africans, or of the white opposition to apartheid. Mathabane, on the other
hand, was frustrated by situations such as a discussion he had in the
1970s with an American who asked him, "What exactly is
apartheid?" "I could hardly believe my ears,"
Mathabane wrote. "Phillip, an American, a college student, the
product of what I thought was the best educational system in the world,
did not know what apartheid was. What on earth was being taught in
American schools?"

During the 1980s, of course, Americans suddenly became aware of the
situation in South Africa, but most responses tended to be based in
emotion rather than intellect, with Roberts's theatre clerk being
an extreme example. And though former South Africans opposed to apartheid
naturally applauded their neighbors' growing awareness, it did
little to address the complex social problems in America—or South
African immigrants' equally complex feelings about their home
country. Roberts experienced a situation typical of many immigrants, with
her children readily becoming assimilated while her own heart remained
tied to the motherland. "The idea of returning" to South
Africa, she wrote, "stayed with me as a consoling, if impossible,
escape through the hard years of my children's teens."

Individual and Group Contributions

FILM, TELEVISION, THEATER

Athol Fugard is a playwright who has written such plays as
Boesman and Lena, Master Harold and the Boys, Sizwe Bansi is Dead,
Statements,
and
Valley Song
; John Kai has been seen acting in such films as
Ghost and the Darkness, Soweto Green, Sarafina, An African Dream, Master
Harold and The Boys,
and
The Grass Is Singing.
; Actor Winston Ntshona has been seen in such movies as
Tarzan and the Lost City, The Air up There, Perfume of the Cyclone,
and
A Dry White Season
; Actor Zakes Mokae has portrayed many different characters in movies such
as
Krippendorf's Tribe, Vampire in Brooklyn, Dust Devil, Percy and
Thunder, A Rage in Harlem, A Dry White Season, The Serpent and the
Rainbow,
and
Master Harold and the Boys.

LITERATURE

Perhaps the most famous South African American literary figure was not a
writer at all: rather, he inspired works such as
A Rush of Dreamers
by John Cech, a novel published in 1997. The figure in question was
Joshua Norton, a Jewish South African who settled in San Francisco, where
he proclaimed himself Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector
of Mexico. An amused and indulgent city honored him as royalty throughout
his life.

A more traditional South African American literary figure is Sheila Gordon
(1927– ), author of fiction and nonfiction, both for adults and
juvenile readers. Most South African American writers, however, have
tended to write nonfiction: thus Meyer Fortes (1906-83) wrote a number of
works in the social sciences, as has anthropologist Philip V. Tobias
(1925– ), while physicist Gerrit L. Verschuur (1937– ) has
concentrated on the natural sciences. Mary Lillian Miles (1908– )
has authored a number of devotional works; and Johan Theron (1924–
), who for many years worked with the United Nations (UN), has served as
editor of UN documentation. Nancy Harrison (1923– ), an American
citizen though she resides in England, wrote an acclaimed biography of
Winnie Mandela (1936– ), the controversial wife of Nelson Mandela
who later became estranged from her husband.

Media

Juluka.

A bimonthly magazine containing news of interest to South Africans in
America.

User Contributions:

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It seems that from this article the author had greater access to Afrikaaner and various black cultural group sources and less knowledge of the displaced english/scottish settlars, displaced initially by leaving the u.k 100 -200 years ago due to famine and need,and displaced a second time by politics and crime in south africa.The second generation of these people couldnt identify with the boers so identified with the culture and language of the zulu people in Kwazulu Natal, and the Xhosa of the transkei. these immigrants identify strongly with a greater sense of loss and displacement from Africa as it is recognised as their birth place without the association of being linked with the Afrikaaner politically or linguistically, because of their colour and accents they are not considered by many australians, american,british,etc. as Africans in fact people are always suprised by this fact, sadly they identify so strongly with african roots that adoptive countries never become home easily.

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There is somewhere were you wrote "mechow, a drink made from corn meal".The word is actually "Mageu" not "Mechow" but otherwise is a very informative site.I am actually interested in emigrating to the USA do you have information on that.

What an informative article about my beloved country South Africa and her people in the Americas. I like the stronger sense of belonging to South Africa. The tone of the article is not biased by my own judgement, it reflects the reality and true picture of what South Africa looks like. The immigrants in the US have a reason to remain attached to their mother land, Black, White, Colored, Asian and / or Indians, as we pride ourselves as "Rainbow Nation" Siyabonga Tata Nelson Rholihlahla Mandela. South Africa calls!

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